


Running Out of Time

by Control_Room, Random_ag



Series: Tortured Tales [4]
Category: The Man With Eyes - Fandom
Genre: Biting, Buried Alive, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Mild Blood, Misophonia, burying imagry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27673403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: School is hell, and children are loud.For Thaische, these two things are not mutually exclusive.
Series: Tortured Tales [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023520





	Running Out of Time

School is hell.

In the mind of kids (and even some adults), school is often hell.

It is not that difficult to imagine or remember why. There are unhelpful teachers, often unbearable classmates, mostly hard boring subjects, usually endless homework, the crushing feeling of utter and untrue stupidity when one fails a test, or falls behind, or when someone finds concentrating or studying troublesome if not completely impossible as is the case for many people who are neurodivergent, if someone has questions ignored or worse yet, answered as if they were an idiot for ever having a doubt on something, when there are bullies that make fun of dress, hair, weight, height, culture, opinions, religion, or practically anything under the sun.

School is a special kind of hell, each aspect to cater to nearly every child that passes through usually double doors.

In the mind of Thaische, school was hell specifically because it was _loud_.

Every single thing or person made a noise, and every single noise made his ears want to burst into minuscule pieces. The chairs and doors and desks screeched like lindworms and leeches melting in boiling milk at the barest of touches, and the windows howled in pure anguish whenever the heat of spring and summer demanded they be opened; the quiet scratch of pens and pencils was amplified by the dozens of scribbling hands, turning the otherwise bearable sound into a horrid itching droning mixing with the teachers’ words, which from simply too loud could easily turn into piercing screams and shouts. Not even the janitors allowed any peace: every movement could earn you a shrill admonishment. Walking became trailing mud all over the floor, going to the bathroom became splashing water everywhere, holding a pen anywhere that was not on your desk became carving your name on every wall with ink.

Worst of all were the children.

Adults, especially counselors who were kindly in nature and unaware how to approach, were baffled. Any attempt at making Thaische socialize failed miserably no matter how many times they would shove her in the midst of a flock of kids, and they simply could not wrap their heads around why that was.

One major reason for this failure was because they did not see the world from Thaische’s point of view - or rather, point of hearing.

What they did not understand was that children are **_loud_ **.

They are, quite possibly, the loudest thing in a small enclosed space. Such as a school.

They are loud outside of school, waiting to enter; they are loud when pushing and running and hurrying to get into class; they are loud as they settle down and during lessons; they are loud as soon as they hear the deafening chime of the bell; they are loud at break and lunch, munching on crunching food with their mouths open like crazed rabbits unaware of basic table etiquette.

Worst of all is recess, because they are _encouraged_ to be loud. It is their few minutes of pure freedom - in other words, it is time to scream at the top of their lungs, pull hair, throw sticks and rocks, wrestle on the ground and inevitably cry at a volume ludacris even for a banshee when one of the half sized humans gets hurt. Yell, go insane, explode if you must: that is recess, and in its complete and deafening madness, restricted children burst and bathe.

Thaische hid in the furthest corner of the garden, trying to get assimilated into the bush. His head pounded as if somebody had been sitting on it. It was far too loud. Too loud. 

The pressure built around them, as though dirt was slowly being shoveled around her form. Slowly, starting from his feet, going up, up, up, higher and higher, packing closer and closer. His vision became darkened and clotted with the soil that clung to her limbs and digits, pushing Thaische’s sense of self into a small ball. Even an attempt to cover the ears that received the shovels was too slow, arms feeling like they dragged through the heavy, heavy topsoil. 

The air was stale and suffocating, filling the lungs with shaky breaths that did not actually provide any oxygen. They gritted their teeth in angered anguish to keep the rubble from spilling into their mouth and choke them further. The noise piled over her relentlessly, its gross muddy texture melting and hardening with no good reason and shifting in nonsensical patterns that offered no such thing as a chance to escape its earthy coiling grasp. Despite their eyes being screwed shut Thaische could tell soon enough the light of the cloudless early afternoon sun would have been blocked out completely from sight, and he would have been trapped forever under endless layers of deafening sounds, never to be found again.

Her jaw hurt by how hard she was clenching it. They could not feel the bush's leaves tickle their skin anymore - all around it was only sound and the nauseating, claustrophobic sensation of being buried with no coffin.

A loud siren approached him - a colony of earthworms seeking his flesh, already believing his rotten and decayed, to rid him of skin and meat and organs and carefully polish his ivory bones.

Something grabbed their shoulder, and they turned like a rabid weasel.

The kid cried for a whole hour. They paraded their bitten hand across the whole yard, dripping blood everywhere from where the teeth had visibly sunk. A couple bruises on their shoulder were additional indicators of Thaische's furious meltdown before she had instead redirected her need to quell her overwhelmed senses onto the bush, tearing branches and leaves to shreds.

Niamh came to pick them up and left in a matter of minutes. The teacher did not even have time to begin scolding her for having such a troublesome child that they were both gone from that sensory hellscape.

School is actually less like hell and more like purgatory. You will be able to leave eventually, unlike hell, which is instead, as detailed in an exhaustingly interminable italian poem, inescapable.

Like purgatory, however, you will have to suffer all throughout your permanence.

Thaische refused to endure such a thing.

Marina woke up to bicolored lights burning in an angle of the room. Her sleepy eyes stared blankly at them for a minute before she yawned: “What time is it?”

“I'm not going back.”

“Where, home?”

“School.”

“Hm-hm.” the girl rubbed at her eyelids to get the sandy feeling off of them, “But you gotta.”

“Too loud.” Thaische insisted, jaw clenched. “Too, too loud. I'm not going back.”

Gonner's white curls rose from her pillow on her bunk.

“What’s this about school?” she asked in her raspy voice. “Too loud?”

“Yes.”

Gonner got out of bed and reached into a box. 

“Here.”

“For?”

“For you.”

She tossed something not too heavy and not too light in Thaische's hands. He looked at her gift: a pair of big, sturdy, homemade headphones, with Gonner’s glyph branded on the sides and decorated with an emblazoned bird skull. They did not look like they were made to listen to music. They were voluminous and seemed too big for the head they were clearly tailored for; their muffs could completely encapsulate someone's ears, especially ones as small as Thaische’s.

“You should go home now.” Marina whispered as they inspected their present, “Niamh an’ Kim will freak out if they don't find you in bed tomorrow. Th'll probably think you were kidnapped or something.”

He nodded. “Thank you.” they murmured. With the free hand, she opened the window.

“What is it with you ‘n’ windows anyways?” Gonner asked before promptly falling back asleep. Her sister finished her train of thought, propping herself up on her elbows, reaching to a PDA to contact Linda: “What's wrong with doors?”

Thaische shrugged halfway through the process of getting out: “Harder to open.” she simply said.

***

Purgatory has lighter pains than hell; but they are pains nonetheless.

Thaische waited at a safe distance of several feet from the rest of the screaming crowd in front of the school. They seemed louder than usual.

The feeling of dirt being shoveled upon her spine made his toes curl uncomfortably and his hands close into fists. Kim drew steady circles on their back, and their jaw relaxed.

“You have new headphones from Gonner,” Kim reminded him softly. “Wanna try them on now?”

She nodded.

A soft, almost foam-like texture brushed against his skin and flattened his wild hair, and then… suddenly, the shrill voices could barely reach the volume of a whisper. They were still able to hear Kim, next to them, clearly, as if they were enchanted or bewitched - and knowing Gonner, they likely were - but the rest of the world adapted to his sensitive hearing and fell almost perfectly silent. 

“Are they good?”

Thaische soaked in the blissful silence of noise cancelling headphones, and through the neutrality of their expression her father could recognize a smile.


End file.
